AJW2W11E

Last week I tried tilting my saddle forward about 14 degrees. I read somewhere it might be a solution to back pain caused by riding a lot.
My rides seem a lot harder and I think I'm using my leg muscles differently. You do go faster but that wasn't the goal.
I'll need a few weeks to verify if this reduces backpain but I miss gliding along with a straight saddle.

Iride01 

You are probably working your legs harder to keep your butt in the position on the saddle where it wants to be. Are you riding harder? No it's probably harder to ride. If it makes you any faster, then it's only going to be the shorter time it takes you to wear yourself out. I doubt you'll like it on a long ride.

There are better solutions for back pain. But it depends on where that pain is in your back and whether it's from the time you start riding or develops after some miles or time on the bike.

Steve B.

No, it just throws more upper body weight onto the h-bar. I keep my saddle dead level.

79pmooney

All my bikes have saddles down by the nose but not by a lot. This has been true for me near forever. Allows me to ride with my back low and near straight with my hips rotated back and my torso and breathing open. Yes, it puts weight on my hands. I have to pay attention to handlebar shape, rotation and brake lever shape and location but when I get it right, I can ride that bike all day.

Level saddles? For me? Pain in the perineum, both during and after. My breathing suffers because I tend to close up my abdomen for better seat comfort. But my saddle down angles are small, like 3 degrees or so. (I never measure. Just go on rides with the wrenches, Use 2-bolt seatposts so I can simply adjust the post say 1/4 turn nose down, ride, go back exactly to the start or half way at 1/8th turn. I don't stop until I've got the seat to where I don't think about it.

Chuck M 

14 degrees? That sounds like a lot and I can almost feel you sliding forward from here. What was your saddle angle before?

I have my bikes pretty much where I want them as far as saddle height, setback, and tilt. But if I was going to try to change anything, I would want to take it in smaller increments than what you did.

delbiker1 

I like narrow saddles on a level plane. Forward tilt equals slipping and instability, backward tilt equals pain and or numbness in the crotch area.

base2 

Ideally your saddle position should be such that you can take your hands off the handlebars and neither fall forward nor backwards. Back pain can be caused by a number of things depending on the cause.

One cause could be the reach is set too far. A symptom of this could also be finger and hand numbness because the nerves in your wrists are not meant to be load bearing. The reason is longer than optimum reach makes proper core engagement to support your torso difficult so your hands and lower back muscles are used to compensate. Eventually both fatigue.

The solution is to level the saddle, find the point at which you "balance" with proper leg extension taken into account and move the handle bars "closer," not necessarily higher.

Too far reach can also cause your shoulders to roll unnaturally and have you looking at your front tire and make it difficult to look over your shoulder for traffic and whatnot. How's the position of your shifters/brake hoods? Rolled back towards the sky for good palm-full grip? With proper reach, the hoods will be close to level...At least with modern ergonomic shifter design. Get shorter stems and or handlebars with shorter reach until this is true.

PeteHski

14 degrees forward saddle tilt is insane! Level or up to a couple of degrees forward is the norm. I’m surprised you can even sit on it like that. Does it not feel like you are sliding off the front?

Sierra_rider

A few degrees forward, at most, is normal. Even then, level is probably better unless you're climbing a lot or make a bunch of power. The climbing thing is because it rotates you forward for a climb. As far as power, a strong rider can hold themselves up a bit just from the action of pedaling.

AJW2W11E

Maybe its less. My big butt sticks to everything . By the way this is a drop bar bike. She has a nice geometry and that's why I'm still riding her.

79pmooney

If I were to follow this advice, my rides would be slower, upwind harder and my rides less fun. I still ride the low back I worked on in my racing days. (Well, not that low, but close.) Ride considerably longer stems than back then because I have found I like 1) my arms straighter with less bend than I used racing. I'm older, not as strong and that 90 degree bend with weight on it gets tiring and 2) I like the bars further forward and higher than what I raced long ago. (And can afford custom stems. Also collected quite a few stock really long ones.)

Yes, looking over my shoulder is harder. Just like when I raced. But now I use a mirror so that issue is a "so what?" I hold my back in large part with my arms and work on relaxing my back. Lower back issues simply aren't. (Well, not quite true, My back has had a lot of other life experiences. But I ride to stretch it out. My breakthrough for both back comfort and breathing was when I replaced the 130 stem on my commuter with a 180. Started a change on all my bikes.) With decent upper body, arm and shoulder strength and comfortable hand positions in several places, that fact that they have to do work supporting me isn't a problem.

And no, I cannot ride very long no-hands leaning forward. I have to sit up. Never occurred to me that was a problem but now I know that is somehow wrong. I just thought that's what handlebars were for.

I ride with my seat farther forward than the "balanced" approach gives. This allows me a larger angle between thighs and abdomen, improving breathing. (More oxygen - more comfort!) My bikes appear to have the seat back with high setback posts but I also ride bikes with steep seat tubes to pull the rear wheel forward for good weight balance. I should have my customs built with curved seatposts but I never remember.

base2 

79pmooney Everyone has to find what works for them. General "rule-of-thumb" starting points are just that, starting points. The human body is quite adaptable. After a lifetime of doing it "wrong" I have no expectation that anyone's mind will be changed. It works for them (you) and that's what matters. The rub here is that for the OP, something isn't working. A reset back to zero is always a good place to get back on track.

For me, I find that that the more I learn about myself in the last decade, the more I find myself circling around the central cluster of general bike fit advice. The long low stems I thought I were comfortable, strong and fast in 2014-2015 were far from as strong, comfortable, or fast as I could've been. If I knew then what I know now, all my size 58 bikes I knew fit me perfectly would probably be 56's

The good thing is fit is fairly easy & cheap to fiddle around with, so no harm is done with experimenting around until the next issue presents itself.

PeteHski

Maybe you should measure the angle then and report back. But if it really is anywhere near 14 degrees (how did you derive that value?) then you need a serious rethink about your whole position on the bike.

masi61

AJW2W11E can I ask what saddle are you using?

shelbyfv

This is nuts. Hard to believe any legit fitter recommended this.

Carbonfiberboy 

Way too much tilt. I tilted mine forward for a while to take pressure off a saddle sore. Maybe 9°. Didn't change the feel of the bike, but might depend on the saddle in use.

bruce19

A slightly different thing to consider. Check your saddle position periodically. This year the saddle on my Canyon Aeroad felt pretty uncomfortable. I chalked it up to start of season soft butt. Then I took a look at it. It looked really nose down. WTF! So, I put a level on it and indeed it was really nose down. Leveled it and adjusted saddle height and VOILA problem solved.

seypat

Not going to touch that one, this being a family forum and all.

Jumpski

Level saddle for me.

cyclezen

Tilting my saddle does not make me harder.

Onward and Upward
Yuri

canklecat

A few years ago when the UCI got into a spat with pros over saddle tilt and positioning, especially for time trials, I tried setting up one road bike with aero bars to use a saddle tilted slightly nose-down and as far forward as possible.

On the plus side, the nose-down tilt forced me to pedal with a purpose, just to avoid sliding forward. Maybe it put a bit less pressure on the perineum. Overall I could see how it might be more efficient for a highly trained athlete. Which is probably why the UCI got involved in restricting saddle positions.

But I don't have the legs, back and stamina to sustain that position longer than my usual 20-30 minute local time trial routes, and it's a damned uncomfortable half hour.

PoorInRichfield

I recall having horrific lower back pain at the end of hard rides, even when I was a teenager decades ago. The solution? I finally started working on my flexibility and core strength after suffering with lower back pain for decades.

This article pretty much explains the lower back pain problem (and solution) for my. YMMV: How To Fix Back Pain Cycling

noglider 

PoorInRichfield that site is great. I bookmarked a few of their pages with exercises.

Trakhak

Left photo is exactly how Lance Armstrong looked when racing. In fact, I just took a quick look at the Eurosport video of the last 3 k from today's Giro stage 20, and Pogacar's posture on the bike is much more like the left photo than the right, too. (Mine is, too, I'm pretty sure, although that's where my resemblance to Armstrong and Pogacar ends.)

Maybe the rider in the right photo assumed an exaggerated pose for emphasis. Sure doesn't look like what I'm used to seeing.

And on this subject: when I started racing in 1964, in New Haven, none of us local guys knew anything about stretching, weightlifting, or any other exercises for cycling. Never heard of "working the core" or what have you until the last 15 years or so.

Fast-forward to the present day, and I still don't do any of those things. Cycling doesn't cause me back pain; cycling is what I do to relieve my occasional bout of discomfort from lower back compression.

PeteHski

I haven’t read the article, but that supposedly “correct” position on the right doesn’t inspire me with much confidence that it would be worth reading!